72
Bathrooms since 2021
Sample figure
Riverside Mill, Asheville
A shop that only knows how to build one room
Ines Carrasco narrowed the business down to bathrooms in 2018 and has turned down every kitchen since. This is what that decision bought.
01
Why bathrooms, and only bathrooms
Ines spent eleven years designing kitchens and bathrooms for a larger firm, and noticed the same pattern every year. The kitchens went reasonably well. The bathrooms went either beautifully or badly, and the difference was almost never the design.
It was the pan slope. The membrane laps. Whether the fan duct actually reached the outside. Whether anyone flood-tested before the tile went on. Those decisions were being made by whichever sub happened to be available that week, on a room type that most general contractors build eight or nine times a year.
In 2018 she stopped taking kitchens. The shop now builds bathrooms most weeks of the year, which means the crew has repeated the same twenty critical details several hundred times. The design conversation got better as a side effect, because nobody is guessing what is possible.
We are nine people at Riverside Mill: four on the tools, a project manager, a tile setter, a designer, a selections lead and an office. We work inside a forty minute radius, we finish roughly twenty bathrooms a year, and we go back to every single one at twelve months.
Bathrooms only since 2018
02
The studio in numbers
Sample figures for a demonstration site, in the shape a real shop of this size would report.
9
People in the studio
Four on the tools
12mo
Return visit
Included every time
40min
Service radius
From Riverside Mill
03
Four things we will not trade away
Every shop says it has values. These are the four that show up as line items we refuse to remove from a quote.
Narrow on purpose
One room type, every week. The details stop being decisions and start being habits, which is the only reliable route to consistency.
Show the hidden half
We photograph what is behind the wall and the flood test, because that is the part you are actually paying for.
Say the awkward thing early
If your floor structure will not take a curbless pan, you hear it at the quote, not in week two.
Leave the house cleaner
Dust wall on day one, vacuum at the end of every day, and the hallway protected the whole time.
04
The people who will be in your house
Five of the nine. You meet Ines first, then Wendell and Dermot before anything starts.
Ines Carrasco
Founder and designer
Ines spent eleven years in kitchen and bath design before narrowing the whole shop down to bathrooms in 2018. She draws every plan that leaves the studio.
NKBA certified, based in Asheville since 2009
Wendell Pike
Lead carpenter
Wendell runs the build crew and is the person whose number you get at the pre-construction meeting. He has framed, waterproofed and finished more than two hundred wet areas.
Twenty-two years on the tools
Soraya Nasser
Tile setter
Soraya draws the layout for every room before a tile is scored. Herringbone and basketweave work goes to her, and so does anything with a hand-glazed edge.
Certified Tile Installer #0000 (sample)
Dermot Hayes
Project manager
Dermot writes the schedule, chases the glass shop, handles the permit applications and sends the Friday photo update. He is the reason dates get hit.
Manages every permit and inspection
Priya Anand
Selections and studio
Priya looks after the materials library, runs selection sessions and keeps track of what every sample costs so nothing is a surprise at ordering.
Runs the Riverside Mill samples room
05
Licensing, cover and certification
Numbers shown are placeholders on this demonstration site. Real certificates are available on request.
NC general contractorLicense #00000 (sample)
Lead-Safe Certified FirmEPA RRP, pre-1978 homes
Certified Tile InstallerOn every wet-area build
Liability and workers compCertificates on request
NKBA memberNational Kitchen & Bath Association
Twelve-month return visitIncluded with every project
Curbless pansFlood-tested waterproofingHeated floorsQuiet ventilationHand-glazed tileLocal cabinetryLow-iron glassTwelve-month visits
Next step
Come and see the samples
The studio is open Monday to Friday at Riverside Mill. Bring a photograph of the room and we will talk through what is realistic.
Free measured survey · Fixed written proposal · Bathrooms only